Welsh literary sector hit by AI-powered scams, amid wider data breaches

Tomos Feasey

Publishers and authors across Wales have been hit by sophisticated, AI-powered email scams offering publishing partnerships, commercial frameworks, festival invites, and publicity promises.

This is part of a pattern that has been escalating across the English-language literary world for at least a year, in both frequency and technique.

These emails impersonate real editors and individuals at reputable organisations, clone genuine email signatures, and reference an author’s actual published work, with startling accuracy.

Scammers use AI tools to summarise an author’s book and generate flattering messages designed to show genuine engagement with the text, making the approach far harder to spot than the clumsier scam emails of the past. Only after building a rapport are “service fees”, or “commercial frameworks” introduced.

Author and poet Peter Finch was one such recipient, saying: “These AI-generated scams get you by boosting your ego. They are so full of lengthy praise of your work that you get sucked into believing it. In the old days you’d win an award but to receive it would have to attend a ceremony held in an expensive hotel for a period of three days and need to pay for the accommodation yourself. Today it’s more subtle but they still ask you to pay. The key to spotting them is the length of that praise. Regular operators don’t have the time to send out page-long scripts of bogus artificial commendation.”

Another author who has published a number of books with Parthian Books received an invitation to the prestigious Beyond Borders International Festival purported to be from its founder and organiser.

“It deployed the usual flattery and stressed how it brought together internationally renowned authors etc, etc. It did, however, raise suspicions since it was only five weeks before the event was due to take place in Scotland! I was simply being asked to reply to indicate my interest. My publisher consulted the organisers of the bona fide festival on my behalf and they confirmed that the invitation had not emanated from them.”

These emails seem to target older authors, including a widower in his late 80s, as well as authors with limited online presences who may consider themselves less of a target for scams.

Publishers have also been targeted. Richard Davies of Parthian Books stated: “It is the range and specific targeting of these scams that is concerning. They are not always easy to spot. One, ostensibly from a small press in the US, had used the email, signature and picture of an editor at a real publisher to offer an author an opportunity to reach a big audience through editorial and marketing, working collaboratively. No fee was mentioned. That would have come later.”

This is not a new or localised issue, but one that has intensified sharply in recent years. The Authors Guild in the US has documented a “noticeable uptick” in email scams, such that they have introduced new email-verification requirements within their own contact forms. The Australian Society of Authors has issued two separate warnings within five months, flagging growing impersonation and scamming campaigns.

Data security

These events represent a bad year for data security more generally, after Beacon CRM, a customer relationship management platform used by more than a thousand UK charities, reported a major data breach in July 2026, with names, contact details, dates of birth, and payment history all exposed.

The company stated: “Currently, our investigation has confirmed that copies of database backups were made and likely downloaded by the unauthorised third party.” It has since advised customers to “assume that all data that you store in Beacon, including attachment files, has been downloaded”. Literature Wales is one of these customers.

So far, “there has been no indication from online monitoring that data associated with the incident has been published, disclosed or otherwise misused,” according to the company.

Literature Wales stated: “We are sad to hear that members of the writing community are being targeted by these spam emails. Although it’s unlikely that they are directly linked to the data breach our CRM provider, Beacon, recently endured, we appreciate that both matters make the digital landscape currently feel unsafe and difficult to trust.”

Older authors

That recent scamming disproportionately targets older authors is a pattern consistent with attackers working from leaked demographic data. Many of the emails have also only appeared since the breach took place.

Authors and publishers are advised to watch for common flaws in scams. Legitimate companies usually send emails from their official domain (e.g. @company.com), not from public domains like @gmail.com or @yahoo.com.

Email addresses used in scams also often have letters missing from the company name. As with any unsolicited approach that seems too good to be true, writers are advised to take a moment, verify independently, and confer with colleagues or their writers’ organisation before sharing any personal details, manuscripts, or money.

Literature Wales offers direct advice to writers by phone and email, at 029 2047 2266 and [email protected]. They have also stated: “We would like to hear more about the phishing and scams that writers and publishers have experienced so that we can better understand the challenges faced due to quickly evolving technology, and advise accordingly.”

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